Treating Heart Disease
With Stem Cells

What stem cells can do today opens doorways to even more, tomorrow…

Heart disease is a type of cardiovascular disease (CVD). The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that one in three American adults have one or more types of cardiovascular disease. That’s 80 million people! According to the CDC, heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. In 2007, one quarter of all deaths were from disease of the heart.

Heart disease is a general umbrella term for many kinds of heart conditions. Examples of heart diseases include: coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, hypertensive heart disease, cardiomyopathy and inflammatory heart disease. Coronary Heart Disease (CHD), also called Coronary Artery Disease, is the most common and also the source of most heart attacks.

Heart Disease Latest News

Heart Therapy with Stem Cells Shows Progress

Chicago Tribune’s Bruce Japsen reports on the results of an experimental stem cell treatment at Northwestern University to rebuild failing hearts. The clinical trial involves a group of patients with severe cardiac illness who received a stem cell treatment using their own purified stem cells.

Texas Man Says Stem Cell Treatment Saved His Life

Ginger Allen of CBS 11/TXA 21 television station interviews a man who received a treatment using his own stem cells three years ago in Bangkok. After three heart attacks and bypass surgery that nearly killed him, 85-year-old Joe Woofolk discusses his improvements after receiving this "last resort" treatment for his heart failure.

Stem Cell Study Underway at Baptist Hospital

Phase II clinical study involving stem cell treatment for cardiovascular disease is underway at Baptist Memorial Health Care-Memphis. The study is the first in the Mid-South to incorporate stem cells for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. The study will assess the effectiveness of the therapy in healing scarred cardiac tissue.

UConn Professor's Stem Cell Research May Lead to Improved Heart Attack Recovery

Ever since she cloned a molecule early in her career, Linda Shapiro has had a mission: Figure out what it does. So she spent years in the lab, explored its development, conferred with other researchers — anything to find the function of the molecule, known as CD13. Now, after 20 years, Shapiro could be on the verge of a major breakthrough.

Novel Stem Cell Trial Targets Heart Disease

The Reporter’s Kathy Whitney reports that Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute recently enrolled its first patient in a Phase II FOCUS clinical trial using stem cell treatments aimed to reverse damage to a patient's cardiac muscle caused by heart disease. FOCUS in one of three trials being conducted by the Cardiovascular Cell Therapy Research Network.

U.S. Doctors Treat Heart Attack with Man's Own Stem Cells

American physicians say they've performed the first procedure in which a patient received injections of his own heart stem cells to repair heart attack damage. The 39-year-old man is the first of 16 people who will undergo the procedure as part of a phase 1 clinical trial being conducted at Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles.

How Does One Mend A Broken Heart?

Adult stem cells may be used to help replace damaged heart muscles, heart tissue, valves and establish new blood vessels to supply them. The American Heart Association estimates that 58 million people who currently suffer from cardiovascular disease might one day be cured or treated through stem cell breakthroughs.